


passageways to meeting areas

by symposiums



Category: Paradise Killer (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28803228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symposiums/pseuds/symposiums
Summary: as a brief respite, lady love dies and one last kiss share a moment experienced in different times.
Relationships: Lady Love Dies/One Last Kiss
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	passageways to meeting areas

The sun disappears and paints the sky with a dark and sinister cobalt; the silence is always the same now, no matter caged or free. What was here before? How did the lives flow in the streets? Was it as pitiful as always, droves of Citizens always fighting for a piece of meat on the factory floor? Or was it beautiful, glorious— as lovely as the marble that lined the streets, twisted into some sort of memory only for those who lived in their hedonistic delusions?

The shimmering, unchanging green and chrome glints underneath the harsh lights. It becomes flat, a lucid television dream etched into her retinas, ever so still. “The lives of Citizens remain in their work,” she sighs. Her hand rests on the rail overlooking the fields - a sea breeze pushes against her. The breeze was something she once missed and now is only a platitude to the stench of blood permeating every inch of Carmelina’s forms. 

The end of an island, the end of an island, the end of an island and they knew — and yet they still made the Citizens work. Days planned to an end and there was no respite, just blood, sorrow and rebirth. Did they feel a gnawing sense of the days to come when they would be removed from work? Did they ever know? Did they carry on until they were gathered in droves, led like slaughter as holy feed?

Her mouth feels dry, seeking the sickly, sweet taste of a drink she wondered still exists. “Dead Nebula?” she said aloud. “If you can hear me, do you still carry that one drink? Dread Sweat?”

She waits and waits and waits and waits and— there’s no point, so she saunters on. The familiar neon glow in the distance buzzes and revolves like the scrolling of an image on a screen.

(Malls, do they have malls anymore? Are they gone? All the gloss and glamour to smooth the pain, seeking sharp, white smiles and blood-red nails like a demon’s talons, words repeated in urgency ( _now, limited, gone tomorrow_ ) for Citizens to find ways to medicate. She envisions Crimson propped up in a display like an unmoving mannequin, forced to be beautiful even after the lights go down.)

The familiar tune rings in her ears, slows down and then speeds up again. Was it real? Or just the hope for something different in this empty cloud of what once was alive?

There is no Dread Sweat. She knows she’s made it up. It was. It was— ah, that’s right. Liquid Scape. It tasted like a strawberry doused in sugar, well what she thinks she remembered how that was on a hot day in Birmingham when she was 6 years old. 

The menu brings up a tea that she recalls making her mouth go dry. She’s collecting all of them for no reason other than because she can, keeping her blood crystals maintained for these passing fancies as a means to occupy her time during this investigation, always passing up Crimson’s information (her dark eyes full of contempt… for what? A reminder of her own commercial tie to this system, perhaps) with a nonchalant “I’m trying to get all the Dead Nebula drinks” as if it means something.

The can opens with what sounds like summer during any other time yet instead just fizzes out to a death. The long, cool aluminum feels wonderful against her warm palms ( _Gloves? In this weather?_ Lydia's eyes flicker to the mirror. _It’s easier this way_ , Lady returns.). The breeze sways again. It feels a little more like a memory now. The liquid is slightly warm against her lips and leaves her throat feeling as dry as she remembers 3 million days ago. It pretends to refresh with citrus and falters short every time. She’s heard that someone on the Council likes it and she begins to imagine who likes eating dust.

“I guess we’ll never know,” she murmurs.

“Gabriella,” comes a thick voice from above. The breeze hits her neck now, but it’s not from the ocean, it’s from a billowing cape.

“Huh?” Lady Love Dies turns. One Last Kiss sits upon the vending machine as a pinnacle of stoicism — there’s nothing girlish or coy about it. Her back ramrod straight, hands like bloody imprints on her lap, hair flowing behind her. 

“Aren’t spirits usually tied to where their body is?”

“Have you met a spirit like me?” Her eyes do not waver underneath her mask, green glowing in the night like a precious jewel.

“No, I suppose not. The Psycho Unit dealt with spirits sometimes, just not…” she trails off, looking back out toward the ocean. The air smell salty, but there’s a hint of something familiar, something sweet—

“Spirits that have been incurred by violence and want revenge?”

“You want revenge?”

“You wouldn’t if you died such a violent death?”

“Hm…” she sips at her drink again. Of course Gabriella would like this awful wash of a drink. Lydia always spoke of the massive cargo that contained the same, paltry water biscuits that she consumed day after day, speaking of the purification of her body as a priestess. Lady thinks it’s the pity she gets when those lower than her wonder if she’s eating enough.

“May I?” One Last Kiss’ voice twines through the night air. Lady Love Dies feels her hairs rise on the back of her neck— the mark of a spirit’s presence that remains tied to this world, a keynote difference from the spectral fog of Citizens that left her craving the slow rolling tingle of a spirit full of sorrow would create down her spine.

“You can drink?” she raises an eyebrow.

“I can do many things.” She reaches out the red hand that glows pink underneath the light of the machine. Her eyes travel up the length of her cloak, over the ice cream blue reflection distorted in each crevice of her mask, to her gaze— unhardened, unreadable, untouchable to other words that she would not dare whisper lest she speak ill of the dead. 

Lady feels the humidity of the night settling in, causing sweat to pool on her lower back. She hands her the drink and waits, watches.

“If you want to know what I look like under this mask, I cannot help you. I have long forgotten what my form looks like.”

“In 10 years?”

“When rage consumes you, the way you once looked no longer matters. The mask is a part of me, not just an accessory to cause unease.”

“I don’t think you need the mask for that.” 

Lady leans against the vending machine, gazing out into the pyramids in the dark mist. They poke out of the ocean like teeth, ready to consume any victims that have fallen into the seat, spiraling down, down into its maw. Fish once existed, before the islands, beautiful and strange, with rows of teeth too big for their mouths. She was a child, unable to look away, no matter how much her parents assured her of all the other horrific creatures that befell their outing after.

No, the depth of massive teeth, all in rows, interested her more. Would this creature consume her someday?

One Last Kiss ignores the quip, as she always does, and remains in her spot. Lady closes her eyes to hear the rush of waves in the distance— how beautiful, how eerie. Did the Architect create those sounds too? They were distorted, a dissonance from the facsimile of something Carmelina never truly knew being bound to these islands for all of her life. Lady Love Dies has become used to it, calmed by it, lulled into sleep by the cacophony of someone else’s interpretation of another’s memory.

It was better than the real thing.

“Why are you here anyway?”

“I am tethered to this island. To my previous life. Is it so strange that I miss things my once mortal self enjoyed?”

“A little, yes. Demons indulge themselves, Gods indulge themselves, but spirits? They are tethered to this world in a way that’s based on a cosmic, psychic feeling. Sorrow, rage, love. They don’t traverse through their memories of halcyon days.”

“I did not say that they were halcyon. Just that I missed them.”

Lady turns to look at her and notices that the bottle is now half empty. “Most spirits are quite honest and don’t have the capacity to banter such as you do. I think there is more to you than you let on.”

“I hope you are able to one day find that out.”

The silence glides like a razor between them, cutting the vein into an expired stillness. The vending machine chimes again and flickers for a moment, then returns to normal. One Last Kiss’ fingers remain loose around the bottle that rests on her thigh. “Did you spend a lot of time here? In this spot, in particular?”

One Last Kiss remains silent as Lady watches the pyramids in the horizon; eternal flames waves in the distance like the eyes of Gods with silent judgement.

“I don’t recall. Not entirely, anyway. It feels familiar though.”

“By yourself or with anyone in particular?”

Silence befalls the spirit again. Lady can hear must off in the distance, in some unknown direction of night’s dark maw. She feels the insatiable tug of wanting to sway with a body close to hers to a melody of a woman’s voice (low, sharp), whisky on her tongue and sweet, sticky honey in the back of her throat. She’s never heard this song before.

“Sometimes by myself. Sometimes with someone else.”

“Who?”

“Who indeed?”

“You don’t remember, do you?” Lady turns to face her. One Last Kiss’ eyes go distant, as if trapped in another

world

/time

/dimension

/memory 

that isn’t her own. The mask slips, theoretically Lady adds to her narrative, as the spectral comes off as more human than ever. Grace Bloodlines is a name, a body, a conspiracy. No investigation could lead to who she really is just by the pieces of other people’s memories clouded by their own rotted and sleek perspectives.

“Sometimes I do. When you’re a spirit, you’re fueled by one emotion and one emotion only. Attached so strongly to it that memories are just blurry visions, facsimiles, no longer relevant to your purpose. A spirit does not long for the taste of these drinks, a spirit does not long for nights by the sea, they are all lost once you give up your form for one purpose only.”

“Then why are you here?”

“A question for the ages, investigator. Perhaps you can find that out.”

Lady’s face softens as One Last Kiss returns the bottle to her; the drink no longer has any appeal. It caters to no memory, to no tie that will be remembered on Perfect 25, just longing, yearning. She pours the drink out on the ground and watches it bubble into a dark patch on the ground that reflects the moonlight. 

(A portal to another world.)

And yet, the company of her presence washes her over with calm; the vengeful spirit tied to her violent death, hands gripping with rage around her throat as she chokes for any sort of answers, fits right in place with this empty island and it’s errant noises of consumption. It makes her think that, perhaps, there’s more to this — the sorrow, the death, the violent ripping of limbs, the pouring of blood from their bodies, Citizen’s and Council members alike.

As the vending machine hisses and chimes once more, Lady Love Dies thinks—

Perhaps she can love once more.


End file.
